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Eifman Ballet Up & Dоwn - New York City Center

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg returns to City Center with the New York premiere of "Up and Down" on May 22 - 24, 2015

Boris Eifman is justly called a “choreographer-philosopher”. However, a much more subtle definition that accurately captures the aesthetic individuality of the Maestro would be a “choreographer-psychoanalyst”. Rightly believing that ballet tools open truly unlimited research opportunities before a dance creator, Eifman plunges into the unknown depths of his characters’ inner worlds and penetrates into the most hidden places of the subconscious.

The quintessence of the choreographer’s psychoanalytic research has become the ballet Up & Down. The semantic space of the performance encompassed between two oppositely directed vectors of the plot (the degradation of the talented young doctor and the ascension of his wife and patient), is turned into a field for surrealistic experiments. With the help of the original plastic vocabulary Eifman depicts the disintegration of characters’ consciousness, bringing their nightmares and delusions to the surface. The choreographer emphasizes rather ironically: the ballet Up & Down is not just a full point but a blot in his many years of psychiatric ballet epic.

The characters’ ups and downs take place in the magnificent Jazz Age – the unstoppable feast of life; the era of freedom, sensuality, and hedonism, masterfully recreated by Boris Eifman and his dancers.